Should GS users be worried about changes in GameCenter?

RossmanBrothersGames

Maybe you guys can help me with understanding the wording in this. It is from Apple's documentation on what is new in iOS 10.

GameKit
The GameKit framework (GameKit.framework) includes the following changes and enhancements:

**_The Game Center app has been removed. If your game implements GameKit features, it must also implement the interface behavior necessary for the user to see these features. For example, if your game supports leaderboards, it could present a GKGameCenterViewController object or read the data directly from Game Center to implement a custom user interface.

A new account type, implemented by the GKCloudPlayer class, supports iCloud-only game accounts.

Game Center provides a new generalized solution for managing persistent storage of data on Game Center. A game session (GKGameSession) has a list of players who are the session’s participants. Your game’s implementation defines when and how a participant stores or retrieves data from the server or exchanges data between players. Game sessions can often replace existing turn-based matches, real-time matches, and persistent save games, and also enable other models of interaction between participants._**

Is this drastically changing Game Center? Do we now need extra features to be able to use leaderboards and such? Do we need to show custom leaderboards within our app rather than the generic game center leaderboards? Are we left in the dark if Gamesalad with its new education first stance chooses not to support Apple's new Game Center services?

supafly129

bump. any details on this @adent42 ?

birdboy

Changes like this are the ones I'm worried about if future updates that have nothing to do with education will take weeks to months.

BigDave

//

RossmanBrothersGames

@Hoodloc said:
Changes like this are the ones I'm worried about if future updates that have nothing to do with education will take weeks to months.

Exactly, this is what should worry us. I hate to speculate on how things like this will be handled, but with the lack of communication it's hard not to... speculate.

@ForumNinja any input on how this stuff will be handled? I get the new education focus, but if you are selling what you call a "Pro" membership, I would assume that "Pro" features should be expected to stay maintained, especially when you sell the membership by the year.

ForumNinja

@RossmanBrothersGames Thanks for tagging me.

I'm not sure how this will directly effect us, as I'm not too familiar with the code base myself, but I did just get a beta copy of Sierra, and I'm working on getting a beta of iOS 10. I'll be sure to do some Game Center tests to see if there's going to be anything special that we need to do on our end.

If we do end up needing to change how we handle things to deal with the Game Center changes, I'm sure that we'll get it taken care of as a lot of you use Game Center.

I'll post back here with what I find out, but in the meantime I wouldn't worry until we know that it actually effects you guys in the first place

freneticz

@ForumNinja the problem is we dont get enough info about the future of GS, people are worry and many oldtimers are leaving

RossmanBrothersGames

thanks @ForumNinja yes in my initial post I was thinking I'm not even sure if we will be affected by this. However as @freneticz said it's not really clear how much support is going toward our needs as developers. A statement like "don't worry all current features (game center, ads, etc) will continue to be supported even as Apple makes changes" could go a long way, we just aren't sure if that is the case, which makes us worried for projects we are currently working. Thanks for the reply!

ForumNinja

I've ran some Game Center tests with Sierra and iOS 10 and almost everything appears to be functioning normally

For some reason it's not letting me post a score to the leaderboard, so that will need further investigation, but other than that there's nothing to worry about.

ForumNinja

Actually scratch that. Posting the score does work, but when showing the leaderboard it initially pops up a window that says there's no scores. Navigating out of that and back in reveals that the scores actually got posted.

Gotta love betas

jonmulcahy

@ForumNinja said:
I've ran some Game Center tests with Sierra and iOS 10 and almost everything appears to be functioning normally

For some reason it's not letting me post a score to the leaderboard, so that will need further investigation, but other than that there's nothing to worry about.

plus we are 3+ months away from it being released, it could be just broken in the beta, or could change drastically by then. I think as long as someone (GS or a user) does periodic tests using newer builds we will be fine.

ForumNinja

@jonmulcahy said:
plus we are 3+ months away from it being released, it could be just broken in the beta, or could change drastically by then. I think as long as someone (GS or a user) does periodic tests using newer builds we will be fine.

Agreed. I'll do more periodic tests as the date gets nearer, but as it sits now it's still functioning correctly.

unbeatenpixel

http://toucharcade.com/2016/06/13/the-game-center-app-is-dead-in-ios-10/

''if your game supports leaderboards, it could present a GKGameCenterViewController object or read the data directly from Game Center to implement a custom user interface.''

I don't think we will be okay with same code base.